


Everything Started With a Tumble

by loofahlover



Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 10:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3352457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loofahlover/pseuds/loofahlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In response to Authenticaussie's story "Flights of Fancy". Though I will probably never do it justice. </p><p>What Zoro doesn't know is that he'd actually met Luffy a long time ago. And it was all thanks to a crazy old man who had no business raising granchildren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Started With a Tumble

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AuthenticAussie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthenticAussie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Flights of Fancy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2671109) by [AuthenticAussie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthenticAussie/pseuds/AuthenticAussie). 



It was not an exaggeration to say that Luffy was one of a kind. Being one-quarter dragon, he could theoretically fly like his pure-blooded relatives.

But for the moment, he's securely attached to solid ground, his fingers tightly digging into the soil like sharp claws, and he's hollering bloody murder.

“Monkey D. Luffy!” Garp keeps tugging on his grandson’s legs. “Stop being a baby and let me throw you off this cliff!”

“Bud iloogs zo sgeeeery!” Luffy wails into the ground.

“Dammit, boy! Marines don’t get scared, and I am determined to make you into a strong, brave marine! A dragon marine! …Marine dragon! …Monkey marine? …Marine monkey dragon?”

 “Would you stop with the f-cking retarded names and let go of Luffy already?!” Ace rams his head against Garp’s giant tree trunk of a leg, bouncing off on impact.

“Ace…” Sabo warns him, pushing with effort against the other leg. Not because he didn’t agree that Garp was a stupid old bastard, but because it was a bad idea to make him any angrier at this point.

“Luffy,” Garp growls. “You’re a brave boy, aren’t you?”

Luffy stops crying. “I am!” He loosens his hold on the ground, which becomes his undoing.

“Then you will…FLY!” On the last word, Garp gives an extra spurt of energy into his yank, and dislodges Luffy into the sky.

Garp will later stubbornly maintain that Luffy had indeed been flying, his rapidly beating wings no bigger than a fruit bat’s. For a few seconds, at least. Or perhaps half a second. At least he’d been airborne.

That is, before he started plummeting like an anchor above the sea, screaming all the way down.

* * *

 

The first time Luffy wakes up, his entire body is held down by a mixture of pain and exhaustion.

“…ey…ok?”

He slowly, ever so slowly turns his head toward the echoey voice, and could swear that he saw a talking watermelon. He tries to raise his arms to rub his eyes, then cries out in pain.

“!...broke…thought you…dead…”

He decides that moving isn’t a very good idea right now. Instead, he’d just like to sink back into slumber.

“…your name?”

It takes Luffy a while to sort through his cotton-stuffed head and remember what the word ‘name’ meant. He wills his tongue to move. “...Ffffffyyy....” He passes out.

* * *

 

The second time Luffy wakes up, he learns many things.

Like how Zoro’s a little older than him, and his hair’s super cool green, and he’s really nice and feeds him.

Or how Zoro wanders the country with his dragon Wado, and they’re currently camping out in this forest.

Or how Zoro had been scared to death when Luffy had fallen through the foliage of a tall tree (Luffy only vaguely remembers screaming his way through sharp, painful branches).

Or how Luffy had broken every other bone in his body.

Which was why Zoro was currently feeding him burnt rabbit leg, indelicately pressing the chunk of meat against his mouth.

“So how’d you managed to get up that high, Fee?”

Luffy tries to correct Zoro about his name, but with a mouthful of rabbit, he only manages, “Mh mhm mph phpphhh!”

“Chew. Swallow.”

Luffy gulps his food down. “Your cooking sucks.”

“Shut up, you moocher!”

“But I still like you.”

Luffy also learns that when Zoro gets embarrassed, his blush travels from the bridge of his nose across his tan cheeks, all the way to his faintly chiming earrings.

* * *

 

On the fifth day with Zoro, Luffy realizes that his bones have already healed themselves, and that it’s probably time to go home.

While Luffy’s flexing his muscles, testing for any lingering pain, Zoro gapes openly.

“Your bones were broken.”

“Yeah-huh.”

“How can you be moving right now?!”

Luffy laughs nervously. “I dunno? I guess all that meat made me heal faster?” Talking about magical dragon healing powers would probably earn him another Fist of Love.

Zoro doesn’t look like he bought the excuse for a second, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Well,” Luffy reluctantly turns toward the entrance of the forest, “I gotta go back home now. Thanks!” He gives Zoro a peck on the cheek.

Zoro immediately sputters, “What the hell was that?!”

“A kiss. Makino does it sometimes when we do something nice.”

Zoro doesn’t bother questioning what ‘Makino’ or ‘we’ meant. He’s too busy rubbing the spot on his cheek. “That’s only what girls do!”

“Oh.” So Luffy takes a giant lick of his palm and ominously reaches for Zoro.

“Ugh! NOW what are you trying to do?!”

“I’m gonna wipe it away.”

“It’s already there! Don’t bother!”

Luffy pauses. “You’re gonna keep it?”

Zoro ignores the fuzzy feeling in his chest when he say without shouting, “I’m keeping it.”

Luffy beams. “Ok then! See ya later, Zoro!” Luffy starts to run off, waving at Zoro all the way.

“Eyes front, you moron! You’re gonna break something again!” But Zoro doesn’t stop waving back, until Luffy becomes a dot on the horizon.

* * *

 

Twelve years later, Zoro and Luffy are soaring several thousand feet above the ground when Zoro suddenly tells Wado to stop, and she indignantly flaps her wings in reverse to hover her passengers in midair.

Zoro slowly turns to face Luffy. “You were Fee.”

Luffy blinks at the sudden statement before rolling his eyes. “Took you long enough.”

Zoro feels a smug growl rumble through Wado. He glares at his dragon. “You too?! And you never told me?!” That explains why Wado hadn't tried to bite Luffy on their first encounter. Zoro grumbles. “How’d you know?” 

“The hair kinda tipped me off.” Luffy says, before sinking against Zoro’s shirt. “I looked for you, ya know. I went through the forest so many times. But I never found you.”

Zoro squeezes the arm against his waist in apology. “I was probably already gone. Back then, me and Wado didn’t stay anywhere very long.” What Zoro doesn’t say is that he’d never thought the boy would come back to see him.  So he'd quashed any faint hopes he might have had by setting off with Wado the next morning.

They hover above the clouds for a bit, in a contemplative silence. Then Luffy chirps, “I probably have to thank Sanji later.”

Zoro’s left eye twitches. “For what?”

“For being my friend. Cuz if he hadn’t, then I would have never met you again.”

Zoro mentally refuses to give Sanji any credit. He'd prefer to think that he would have eventually become reacquainted with Luffy. After all, he could easily imagine seeing Luffy at the races, when he went to cheer for Ace. Zoro would make a casual glance at the racer’s younger brother, then Luffy would latch onto his hair color. Or perhaps they’d bump into each other at the concession stand. Or maybe Luffy would recognize Wado and walk over. It was arrogant to think that fate would have eventually worked in his favor, but then again, fate was how it all started. With a boy tumbling through a leafy canopy.

Zoro doesn’t voice his thoughts, feeling an embarrassing heat rise to his face. He wonders if Luffy already knows: that Zoro’s been in love with the same person his entire life.


End file.
